Chapter Forty-One: The Enchanting Shadow

The passageway was covered in that pale yellow ash left behind by the giant rat. When I first burst in, I was too focused on escaping to notice, but now, as I stepped on it, I realized this mold-like substance was several centimeters thick.

As I ran, the powder puffed into the air and surged into my nostrils. However, my mind was so preoccupied with the image of Wei Lin’s corpse that I couldn't bring myself to care.

I couldn't be sure if the thing I felt in the room truly existed, but it had to be something unimaginably terrifying to have reduced Wei Lin to that state. But why? If this ancient tomb contained something so horrifying, why had it spared Wei Lin for so long? Given what I had just witnessed, it could have taken his life with trivial ease.

Did Wei Lin do something to provoke it? No, he was just talking to me. What was strangest of all was that the thing hadn't attacked me, a mystery that left me utterly baffled.

The passageway wasn't particularly long, and I soon stumbled out onto the stone floor of the circular corridor. Gasping for air, I immediately stood up and nervously swept my flashlight around. The giant rat was nowhere to be seen, but I dared not relax. I walked to the edge of the pit of corpses to peer inside.

Suddenly, I saw that where the giant rat had been perched, a massive crater over twenty meters in diameter had opened up. It was bottomless, surrounded by dense piles of bones. I had previously thought the layer of bones was only four or five meters deep, but it seemed the floor wasn't uniform; this spot was clearly a dozen times deeper than the area where we had fallen in.

Yet, the existence of this crater was entirely illogical. This was a pit of loose, scattered bones. If the giant rat had jumped out, the surrounding bones should have shifted to fill the void. Strangely, the bones around the rim remained perfectly still, as if they had been frozen in place.

Regardless of the reason, I had neither the time nor the courage to investigate. I had to decide what to do next. If I continued along the corridor, I would likely run into the giant rat again, or something worse. But more importantly, with the creature's current whereabouts unknown, what if it got bored and decided to wander around? What would happen to Fatty?

After a brief hesitation, I decided I had to go back and check on him—I couldn't let him be discovered by that beast.

The moment I turned back the way I came, my heart turned to ice. On the stone floor, there were several massive footprints coated in that yellow mold. They clearly weren't human, and what unsettled me most was their direction: they were heading straight toward where I had left Fatty.

I didn't dare delay. Gripping my gun and flashlight, I ran back as hard as I could. The footprints appeared before me again and again. I had no idea how far I was from the spot where I’d left him, but I feared I might run into the creature's back before I reached him.

Thinking of that thing brought back the image of my own face on its head. A bizarre, chilling thought struck me: could that rat transform into my likeness and go to Fatty to talk to him? I shuddered and forced the thought away.

I remembered the journey taking at most half an hour, and since I had been moving slowly to observe my surroundings, I felt I must be close. I gathered my courage and shouted, "Fatty!"

An echo returned from the giant pit, hollow and empty, making the hair on my arms stand on end.

I kept running, then suddenly spotted a black object ahead. It was Fatty's gear bag. Behind it, against the brick wall, lay a shocking pool of blood, but there was no sign of Fatty. Panic surged through me. Had the rat already...?

I frowned and looked at the ground. The yellow footprints didn't seem to stop there; they continued forward. I crouched low and followed them. Fatty was a tough man; I knew that even with such injuries, if he were still alive, he wouldn't sit idly by while a giant rat approached him. He must have dropped his gear and fled ahead.

Sure enough, more bloodstains appeared not far off, becoming more frequent as I went. I grew increasingly anxious. Fatty had lost so much blood—how much longer could he hold out alone?

As I stared at the blood and tracks, my flashlight beam suddenly illuminated a human face on the ground.

"Ugh!" I jumped in shock. Looking closer, I realized the face staring up at the sky was my own. I quickly realized that what lay before me wasn't a person, but the shrunken giant rat.

Panic-stricken, I raised my gun and pulled the trigger on that face of mine.

*Bang!*

The shot rang out, hitting... the brickwork beside it. I had missed. I cursed under my breath, thinking, "I missed from three meters away? I might as well go eat dirt."

I was about to fire again when I felt something was wrong. The rat hadn't moved; it hadn't even reacted to the gunshot. I waited a moment, and once I was certain it was truly dead, I pressed against the wall and crept forward.

When my light finally shone over the creature's entire body, I saw that its head had been removed, and its massive limbs had been severed. It had been killed exactly like Wei Lin, though its head remained. I hadn't fought the creature directly, but looking at its claws, I knew it was incredibly powerful—dismembering it like this wouldn't have been easy.

But the facts were laid out before me. I scanned the area and looked back at my own face on the rat's head. Up close, I noticed the expression was rigid, frozen in a look of permanent terror. Wei Lin hadn't been lying; the rat really had been mimicking the fear I felt at that moment.

Finally, I concluded: even though the face was covered in dust and looked like it was suffering from severe constipation, the features were symmetrical and the eyes were clear—it was, in truth, an exceptionally handsome face.

Conclusion reached, I kicked the head into the bone pit.

I had to keep looking for Fatty. I carefully stepped over the five pieces of the rat's corpse. As I moved forward, my flashlight flickered twice and then went dead.

Plunged into darkness, I shrank back, thinking, *Is that phenomenon happening again? Does that mean the thing is...* I realized I was the only living thing left in the vicinity. Was my fate, after running for so long, going to be the same as Wei Lin's and the rat's?

I stood frozen for half a minute, but I didn't feel anything approaching. I waited longer, but there was no sound.

*Hiss...* Could the flashlight have just malfunctioned?

I suddenly remembered a small backup light in my bag and fumbled to get it out. I flicked the switch, and the area lit up.

"Damn it! 'Professional archaeological equipment,' my foot. You scared the hell out of me!" I spat at the broken flashlight, threw it on the ground, and kicked it ahead.

After catching my breath, I moved on. The backup light wasn't as bright as the first, but I knew that while it lacked intensity, its battery life was immense. If I didn't find a way out, it would probably still be shining long after I was dead.

Just then, a "rumbling" sound came from ahead.

I froze. I watched as the flashlight I had kicked earlier rolled back toward me, coming to a stop against the toe of my boot.

A jolt like an electric shock ran through me, and the hair on my head stood up. The ground was flat; the only explanation was that something up ahead had thrown it back.

I stepped back, wondering if it was Fatty. I called out tentatively, "Fatty? Is that you?"

There was no answer from the darkness ahead. The silence was suffocating. I opened my mouth to shout again, but before I could, a ghostly, drifting melody wafted toward me from the dark.

*"Walking three miles to Peach Blossom Ferry, passing six miles to Apricot Blossom Village... Hearing no sound from within, it is in vain to miss my lady..."*

My mind felt as if it were about to explode. The song echoing in the darkness was the exact opera I had heard in my dream at the Tomb of the Yelang King.

"What... what is this? Why are the things from my dream appearing here? Am I still dreaming?"

But this couldn't be a dream. The slow, mournful tune was chillingly real. With every line, my heart hammered against my throat. I stood frozen for a long time, then noticed something different—the voice sounded strange, less melodic than in my dream, with a much coarser tone.

Driven by a desperate, terrifying urge to see who was singing, I began to move forward on trembling legs.

The sound grew closer. Through the gloom, a white figure emerged. As I got closer, I saw it was a person, standing sideways to me, hands moving in a dance-like gesture. Everything else seemed to vanish, leaving only me and the white figure.

As I drew near, the figure slowly twisted its body and turned its face toward me...

When I saw it clearly... I nearly died of fright on the spot.

God damn your ancestors—the white figure was actually Fatty.

Fatty was stripped to his underwear. The bone that had been protruding from his chest was gone, and the wound had been bandaged. His skin was pale, and he had been scrubbed clean, as if he’d just stepped out of a bathhouse.

His eyes were glazed, and he was singing the ditty, waving his hands in a delicate "orchid" gesture, dancing to who-knows-what.

I was truly, utterly stunned. Seeing the demons of the underworld couldn't have been more terrifying than this.